Irish e-security company Baltimore Technologies has been selected by MasterCard to provide the public key infrastructure (PKI) solution for MasterCard’s SecureCode global e-commerce solution.
MasterCard’s SecureCode solution protects against the unauthorised use of confidential cardholder account data over the internet and the latest deal will allow MasterCard to issue and manage digital certificates for its member financial institutions.
The SecureCode solution provides card issuers with a way to authenticate the identity of the person completing internet payment transactions and reduce online fraud and the number of related chargebacks.
“The MasterCard SecureCode programme underpins the importance of strong security at all levels of online transactions. SecureCode enables consumers, merchants and banks to engage safely in e-commerce and is an important step for secure online internet transactions,” said Denis Kelly, executive vice-president of global operations at Baltimore Technologies.
MasterCard International has a number of well-known payment brands with more than 1.7 billion MasterCard, Cirrus and Maestro credit and debit cards in circulation and use in 29 million acceptance locations in over 210 countries. For the nine months ended 30 September, 2002, gross dollar volume exceeded US$831.7bn.
“Baltimore’s highly scalable PKI technology platform helps provide MasterCard with the ability to deliver secure e-business services to our members worldwide,” said Bruce Rutherford, vice-president of global e-business and emerging technologies at MasterCard.
MasterCard is focusing on being at the forefront of technology integration to enable any time, anywhere payments across multiple channels and various devices. The company’s e-business solutions include internet security, smart cards, mobile commerce, business-to-business electronic commerce and number of emerging technologies.
Last week Visa, MasterCard and American Express confirmed that a computer hacker had recently accessed 8 million credit card records, including 2.2 million MasterCard accounts and 3.4 million Visa accounts.
By John Kennedy
